Obama to unveil jobs plan in major Sept. speech
WASHINGTON - Seeking a jolt for the economy, President Barack Obama will lay out new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class in a major speech in early September, the White House confirmed Wednesday.
The president's plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed, a senior administration official told the Associated Press. The official emphasized that all of Mr. Obama's proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, including his "infrastructure bank" idea to finance construction jobs.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer confirmed the planned speech on Twitter, saying it would take place after Labor Day and include "meaningful, new initiatives to grow the economy and create jobs."
On a related front, Mr. Obama will also present a specific plan to cut the suffocating long-term national debt and to pay for the cost of his new short-term economic ideas.
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His debt proposal will be bigger than the $1.5 trillion package that a new "supercommittee" of Congress must come up with by late November.
The president will then spend his fall publicly pressing Congress to take action as the economic debate roars into its next phase. Both the economic ideas and the plan to pay for them will be part of Mr. Obama's speech, although the address will focus mainly on the jobs components.
Since Mr. Obama is almost sure to face political opposition from Republicans, particularly in the House, he is already preparing to lobby the American public for support if Congress tosses his ideas aside. That would set up an issue for his re-election campaign next year.
Republican leaders were already voicing their criticism, with Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, tweeting: "We really don't need another speech - just a plan, like, on paper. Seriously, just drop it in the mail. Podium not required. Thanks."
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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor also chimed in over Twitter, telling the president "let's get to work" and suggesting he read the USA Today op-ed he penned along with Boehner on the economy.
The administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said no final decisions on the economic package have been made.
Seeking re-election in a dispiriting economic time for the nation, Mr. Obama's rollout plan allows him to come into September swinging after one of the roughest periods of his presidency.
Mr. Obama has hinted about new economic ideas for days as the Republican presidential contenders take whacks as his record. Mr. Obama's economic team has been hashing out the new package since he and Congress struck a last-minute debt deal in late July to prevent a debilitating government default.
Mr. Obama has been rumbling through the Midwest all week, lobbying the locals along the way to help him pressure a divided Congress into working with him. He has one day of his bus tour left on Wednesday before returning to Washington and heading on a vacation with his family.
As president, Mr. Obama is under unparalleled pressure to start showing more economic progress. His own job is expected to depend on it.
Nearly 14 million people are unemployed. Many millions more have given up looking for jobs or haven't found a way to move from part-time to full-time work.
The administration official would not offer details about the tax cuts Mr. Obama is likely to propose for the middle class.
They are expected to be separate from the extension of the payroll tax cut for employees that Mr. Obama has lobbied for by the day. Mr. Obama also has promoted a familiar list of other ideas, including patent reform and three major trade deals. And he has pushed for longer benefits for the chronically unemployed.
As for debt reduction, Mr. Obama is trying to have some say over the highly influential committee charged with recommending major changes fast.
That 12-person panel of Republicans and Democrats will start work in September on coming up with — by Nov. 23 — $1.5 trillion in savings over the coming decades. If not, or if Congress fails to approve the committee's plans, automatic spending cuts that both parties oppose would kick in across the government.
Mr. Obama's plan will be bigger. By how much isn't clear, but he has already envisioned $4 trillion in cuts over a slightly longer period of time.
He was in serious talks with Boehner during the recent, wrenching talks over a similar big package, between $3 trillion and $4 trillion. And those talks had included the potential for economic help like the payroll tax cut extension; Mr. Obama's new plan is likely to follow similar form.
Without offering any specifics about his plans, the president has been telling audiences he will get detailed in September, and then fight it out.
"My attitude is, get it done," he said in one Iowa town hall on Monday. "And if they (lawmakers) don't get it done, then we'll be running against a Congress that's not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear."
The economy has rebounded from a deep recession Mr. Obama inherited, but growth and hopes have stalled.
The unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent. No president in recent history has been re-elected with a jobless rate nearly that high.
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At his rural economic forum in Iowa Tuesday, President Obama exhorted the need to boost the manufacturing and export of U.S. cars and trucks to create jobs.
"We've got folks in America driving Kias and Hyundais. I want to see folks in Korea driving Fords and Chryslers and Chevys," Obama said, drawing applause.
"I want to sell goods all over the world that are stamped with three words: 'Made in America.'"
But it turns out the president's new custom motor coach comes stamped with a brand that's located someplace else: Canada.
His comments that he could, but refused to secure the border because,
"If I was to secure the border, what would be your states motivation to pass my comprehensive Immigration reform?"
Spoken in the Oval Office to Senator Kyl Proves he is both;
Unjust, and a bully that want his own way, at all costs.
Bad president. We are due Protection no matter what his PERSONAL agenda by right and promise of the constitution.
BOOOOOOO, on the President!!!!!!!!!!! Go AWAY!
So what about all the businesses going under and people out of work while The God of the Greens, The Master of the Fairway as he walks across the water hazards to rub elbows with those Corporate jet riding millionaires at Martha's Vineyard? Let them eat cake!
From mount Olympus he throws mana and lightning-bolts to us or is it AT US? ROFL!!
This guy is funny. And frightening. He believes his own BS. ROFL!!!!!!!!
I further concede it was not Obama's fault.
Mettle is what you earn however, In the tough times with no or few real choices. His Mettle is Vanity only. Unfortunate for us all.
-The top tax rates were 91% on personal income and 95% on corporations. This prolonged the Great Depression and cynically confiscated the wealth of the working class and investment class alike.
- On April 7th, 1942, FDR declared that no one in America should be allowed to earn over $25,000 annually (equivalent to $260,000 in 2004 money). This was a typically socialist/communist inspired steal from the rich program. It also assured that the rich would not be able to invest in their businesses, save for the future, invest in the stock market or build homes much less spend on luxury items.
FDR did a lot of things wrong guys and Obama is trying to do it again.
I leave the floor to your wisdom.
Not only is he bent on reducing this country to 3rd world status, he is the most blatant hypocrit I've ever seen. He takes a plane to get on his 39 vehicle caravan with buses made in another country, then talks about jobs and green technology.